Memoirs Of A Consenting Victim by Tru S. Dowling

This is the book that I got in exchange for a review, so here it is!

Memoirs of a Consenting Victim by Tru S. Dowling was a bit hit and miss to me.

It's a small book of poetry, centering themes of Australian life and the struggles of being a woman, often mentioning, as the title suggests, domestic abuse, having children and the lack of that. It touches on a lot of things, maybe even a little to wide of a spread.

One of her poems is titles Bush Fire and explores the effects of Black Saturday on the Australian psyche, in particular the anger at George Bush. It is one of my favourites from the book and is so deeply evocative. It's angry angry and passionate, and the sense of betrayal of the nation. It's feels like I felt, like people I know felt. It's brilliant and hits home.

There were some poems which just amazed me, but more that I didn't really find to hit the mark.
All the imagery was strong and invoking, but often found itself oddly placed. The appeal to the senses was amazing, the language was rich an full. It engaged every part of the mind and was a great read.

In conclusion though I enjoyed the book, it wasn't really for me.

The Sunday

So the second day wasn't quite as amazing as the first day, but was still a great day.

The day kicked out on a bit of a downer, being severely disillusioned as to a popular author. The session 'Access all Ages' provided a lot of information which helped me to figure out my standpoints on certain topics though strongly disagreeing. It went to prove that the appreciation and enjoyment of the created content does not have to lead in to a appreciation of the person them self. She did provide a good basis of which approaches to writing a novel work, and moved to demystify the job of being an author.

'Not Drowning, Adapting' while good was somewhat dry. The stand out quote of the day can from this session however, and was in response to a question asking if the way news had spread to the internet meant if paper news was dying out. The response was simple yet oddly profound, "Since I started, people have been telling me it's over. It still isn't"

The third session of the day was the high point of the day and was quite amazing.'Words and emotions' was full of experiences which i struggle to put into words. The session was about the often passed over art of writing songs, and it was just a truly amazing experience.  There is a beautifully unique feeling to watching an artist play music, particular in a setting as intimate as it was that is just altering. The music was beautiful and the people were engaging.

The final session was on Game of Thrones and honestly seemed like a collection of people fangirlling over the TV series. Of the three panelist they haad not a one had finished the book series, and even the writing of the TV show and how it was adapted was only mentioned in passing. What could have been a great session discussing the pros and cons of Game of Thrones felt shallow and pointless.

All in all I had a fantasic weekend full of wonderful people and exciting events.It was an amazing experience, and I'm looking forward to hopefully going again next year.

The Saturday

            The festival was pretty amazing, the weekend in particular just blew my mind. As I mentioned before this was the first time I'd been to a writing festival and I loved it!

            I got super spoiled with my first session of the day, it actually turned out to be the highlight of my week. I came away from it with a book written by one of the authors, signed with a lovely message. The amazing session I attended was 'Girl, you'll be a women soon' and consisted of a panel of three author all with recent books with teenage girl main characters, all interview by Julie Proudfoot. The three amazing authors were Nicole Hayes, Kirsten Crawford and Jenny Lowentish. All these three raised some amazing points, and all played off each other to make a really fascinating and engaging dialogue. I cannot recommend any of these authors more highly, in particular the amazing Jenny's novel, Cherry Bomb. The general discussion centered around coming of age stories for girl. I got this wonderful quote from Kirsten which was "Why does a 14 year old girl have to wear the responsibility of the men around her." That really encapsulated the theme of the session to me, and appeared to be one of the prominent questions her book sought to provoke. There was discussion about the vast imbalance of coming of age stories directed at girls in comparison with those targeted at boys. There is a distinct lack of stories which are targeted for the girls who are struggling to find themselves, with most of the coming of age genre being target at boys how find themselves on the outs. All in all it was a brilliant session and really set the tone for the rest of the weekend.

            The second session continued the trend and was incredibly informative, if a little confronting. The session was called 'Fighting back', and was about bullying in the early high school years. Much of the discussion was very emotionally charged, and  while I didn't agree with everything that was said it was all thought provoking. Discussions of how people learned to deal with the trauma of being bullied, such as with aggression or humour. Keith Austin raised an interesting point, using a  word from the old testament, and has two different translations from English to Hebrew. Timshel can be translated as either 'Must do evil', or 'May do evil'. This pushed conversation about wheter people have a choice or if we are fashioned with a predisposition for evil. It was a great session that had some unexpected twists and turns, and was something that's going to stick with me for a while.

            After a bit of a schmozzle getting lunch, the third session was not quite what I expected it to be. The session was 'From Victor to Hugh', and centered around the recent exhibition in Melbourne. It featured the original manuscript of Les Miserables, which left France the first time to be present. Not much to say about this one, it centred mainly around the organisation of the event itself. While it was interesting, it wasn't for me.

            And finally, the day came to a close with the fourth session 'The Toughest Genre', another truly amazing lesson. The session was about crime writing, and the assumptions about writing in particular genre. Crime writing in general tends to be disreguarded as a soft sort of genre. The panelists all were brilliant and engaging and lend to me taking home another book.

I left happy but exhausted, and excited for the next day.

Personal writing

                An assignment for school I did a while back challenged us to write a short story using aspects of one of the novels we studied during the year. It begins with a paragraph explaining my intentions for the story. Though it's a little old now,  I'm still so proud of it as a story. I got an A for it, so the feeling might not be to unfounded, I leave it up to you to decide what you think of it!

A creative narrative exploring the issues which were raised in The French Lieutenants’ women about the perceptions of sex and sexuality in society. Instead of focusing  on women, I’ll instead focus on men and masculinity through a discussion of the lack of freedom bound into position in society, and the quirk of personality that inherently seems to bring manhood into question; homosexuality. In this story I tried to use the prevail theme of emancipation displayed in Fowles work. I took some of the stylistic features form the text including the idea of the intrusive narrator and reflections of data. There was some incorporation of the language used by John Fowles. The watchful eyes of strangers were a frequent theme in The French Lieutenants Woman that I chose to leave out, as I wanted to focus on the privacy. 

The dully lit room through the shadows eerily against the wall, the slight flickering making them move like wraiths. They were partially obscured by the clouds of smoke making their way to the hazy blanket covering the ceiling. The men clenching the cigarettes and cigar’s responsible for the acrid stink of the room cheered and laughed at the girls dancing and gyrating in front of them, their shining sweat covering skin gleaming and cut through the smoke. Though the sight should have called to the forefront an animalistic part of his being, the one that was residing in each male accompanying him in the room. Certainly he could see it in each of the men surrounding him. But in Daniel, all that the sight brought in to his mind was the query of where the girls had come from, was there someone searching for these waifs, missing their lost possessions. Witnessing them being pawed at by men well past the ability to reason or engage in a thought of a more sophisticated nature evoke a mild nausea in him.

A sigh dragged itself through him, collecting his contempt for this place, his discomfort at being here and the vague paranoia that someone would notice and condemn him as improper for it. He drew a few glances but he was not the focus of anybody’s desires. Being a man of unfashionable features for his time and not in possession of any great fortune this was not a new experience for him. The fumes were addling his brain and his low tolerance for an excess of toxins in the air was well known. He exploited this, using it to become an apt excuse for him to leave the place. Nothing more than a few mildly disgruntled protests followed him out the door. He tucked himself into a coat, functional though not attractive coloured in a decidedly out of fashion shade and took to the streets.

There were few people on the streets but for the hour and district he found himself in this was not unusual. Idle thought flirted through his brain, but none of them possessed enough substance to become one coherent enough to speculate upon. The most preoccupying one was speculation on which path way would get him home fastest, a direct routes through the clean streets kept that way for people that could afford it with a fair amount of excess. His other option and the one that he chose was the longer journey through the grimier streets, worn through their constant use and uncared for because of the lack of funds in possession of the people living there. Though the ambition of the middle class Daniel was mildly ashamed to attribute himself too was to rise above their station, he found himself inexorably fascinated by the steady reliability and all encompassing nature of physical labour. It kept all thoughts of a more troubling nature from worrying at his tousled blonde head. Like the feeling that was not evoked by woman in compromising positions that seemed to belong to him alone. He learned to smile and fake him way through many an occasion and dance with all the pretty women in hopes of moving towards the family goal of ensuring a greater amount of  money.

An abrupt end to his wondering was brought about with his collision with something that felt a great deal like a brick wall.

“Hey, watch were you’re goin’.” Grumbled the solid mass in protest. Daniel peered at him, a reflexive apology making its way out, “My apology-“, and cut off as if with a meat cleaver. He was taller than Daniel and clad in a style that immediately identified him as a member of a class inferior to his own. It would have been obvious even if not for the obvious tells, he had the muscle bound stature of someone who spent all day hard at work and the slight colouration that told that it took place during the daylight hours. He smiled as the dawning recognition was shown on the other’s face a moment after it took place on his own. “I was hoping to see you here Isaac. I had little hope of finding you about at this hour though.’

            “Seeing me here at this time is more likely than catching you here. Where have you been? Or more to the point, what have you done?” Isaac replied, his gruff tone being contradicted by a wicked grin that brought into mind the joint memories they shared. A quiet flush crept embarrassingly over Daniel’s face. He coughed, looking away.

            “I’ve been considering your proposal ...” He bit the inside of his cheek, Isaac had that expectant look in his eye.

            “Isaac, it’s impossible.”

            All expression fell from his face and he closed like a shutter.

            “I just can’t we can’t. We have to consider the marks it would leave on our families.” Isaac’s rough laughter echoed hollowly.

            “On your family.” A warm trickle of coppery blood pooled in Daniel’s mouth. He stayed silent, but that was as incriminating as anything he could have said. Isaac nodded curtly.

            “We’ll be nothing to each other then. Cut contact. No one will suspect a thing.” Daniel nodded. The breeze already blew a little colder. He closed his eyes, and nodded. He smiled and turned to leave, a bark of “Wait!” He stopped and glanced back.

            “Once more. Just one more attempt at persuading you, then you can walk away.”  Daniel started to protest and was pulled in closer to the other man.

            Two men embracing in the secrecy of this secluded corner in the night time. This very image as brought into your mind several possibilities. Perhaps they are merely too long separated friends becoming reacquainted once again after a long separation. Simply estranged colleagues. Or maybe activity of an illegal nature is about to take place and this is merely a ruse. But the way the taller of the two is gently tilting the others face upwards, the depths of emotion revealed in their eyes and the way their lips are pressing against each others with a quiet urgency confirms the more subtle suspicion you have. The wayward thought that something exist between these two men hat should rightfully exist between a man and a women. At least in this age. It must be kept in mind that though the current views of society are ever expanding, to be this open they must have been quiet narrow to begin with. But the strictures of their age hold no importance during this quiet moment as the two men share a tender loving kiss. Daniel pulled away, and glared at Isaac.

            “Come away with me,’ He said. Daniel hesitated, the devastation would be terrible if he left, and not only brought upon himself. But Isaac had everything he wanted, and the life he wanted was held within the worn palm of his outstretched hand. He sighed, pulling a measure of composure back over himself. He smiled uncertainly. He reached out and slowly took his hand, their eyes met.

 “Alright.”

Hello!

1.      Hello all, My name is Miriam and as may have guessed I'm a serial procrastinator. It seems to be a personality trait that afflicts many a writer, particular ones just starting out. For me, it stems from a fear of putting my work out there for people to judge, not trying in case I fail. Experiences with other writers, including those I met and enjoyed the company of an the Bendigo Writers Festival, have taught me that I'm not alone in this. For whatever your reason, procrastination seems rampant among writers and people who are involved in the arts.  Many of the posts to follow have been written and waiting for a while, and are only being placed up due to the necessity of assessment.

                 How ever much I put it off, I can't deny that I love to write and always fall to it in my spare time. Creating worlds and characters to populate them is something I do without to much thought, and thusly I can suffer from a lack of technical precision. That's what I went into WiA hoping to get from the subject and I was not disappointed. This festival was the first writing festival I went to, and it was everything I wanted it to be and more! I hope you all had such enlightening experiences.

                 Enjoy the blog, and good luck with your own!